our holiday in bulletpoints!

• we went a day late due to the boyf having food poisoning
• we had a cabin at 15 Lake Beck and our back door opened into the forest
• it was at Winfell forest nr. Penrith
• Starbucks rocks
• we had a great photoshoot and the photos will be available soon!
• i packed WAY too many clothes. we needed half! (tho the weather was unpredictable so thats my excuse and im sticking to it!)
• the boyf is better at archery than me! i got a bullseye on my first shot and got progressively worse!
• i spent over £100 on clothes in Spirit in the centre
• the boyf bought me a union jack doggy doorstop (i already have a house full of them!)
• we took too much food
• my spa session was amaze-balls! i had a mud-wrap flotation thingy, which meant she scrubbed me down, covered me in mud, wrapped me in foil, dropped me into a floatation tank and gave me a head massage! 
• i got told off in the spa. apparently to go into the actual communal spa area you have to book the day. this is not what it tells you online!
• i bumped into one of the women that owns the hairdressers i frequent! she was there with her family and sister and her family! freaky!
• we went on a 'hawk walk' with Bob the harris hawk, theyre not native to this country and he was a 'teen' (very unruly, quite ignorant) that was a real highlight of the holiday
• the boyf, ive learned, does not like any activities, ever, unless you force him to do them and he ends up having fun. 
• i had a trike. ive not been on a bike since before i was a teen and came off in an accident. and even then it had taken dad YEARS to teach me to ridet. he had a blast this time round! the only drawback was that that trike weighed a tonne and when i had to go up hills... fail....!
• the boyf is a fish. he should have flippers and gills.
• he taught me to swim on my back!
• i went down my first ever waterslide! and then went on it again straight away!
• i also went on a really big flume-slide, which, tho i banged my elbow pretty badly, ROCKED! youre gonna have a problem keeping me off them!
• the rapids were glorious, had so much fun on them!
• the boyf wants to keep up with the swimming now we're back!
• Hucks diner sucked. tho they were very accomodating with my gluten and dairy intolerances
• after we left CP we went to Penrith for a few hours, then to a castle just outside
• on the drive home we pulled off at Kendal cos the weather was monsoon style torrential and the car kept floating due to it being a sudden downpour.
• in Kendal we popped in to see Kristiana at her new job! she was homesick that day, but it was really good to see her!
• i bought many many things. besides the clothes, i got 2 cushions for the lounge, some presents, some hanging things, some GF and DF choc coated biscuits that ive already been thru two packs of...
• i beat the boyf at scrabble by over 100 points
• we never watched the box sets i took
• there was a channel on the tv just set up for a badger-cam, watching a sett, on the night before we left, we finally saw a badger!
• Winfell forest is a conservation area for the red squirrel, which the grey squirrels kill with diseases and such. so its a really important place, we saw many! i was so pleased! we also saw pheasants, other game birds, and lots and lots and lots of birds, a few bunnies and random bugs :)

Center Parcs holiday! part 2!

PENRITH CASTLE... was very small!

PENRITH... Penrith had about 40 pubs in it, and its only a small market town! very few shops, very many pubs, some were closed (and not likely to reopen) but the amount astounded me. i cant believe they had so many! some lovely buildings in Penrith, Red Sandstone is darling!

how cute is this mini pickup 850?!?!


BROUGHAM CASTLE...was huge! and amazing! and wet...

 

this is my 'welcome to my new home' pose haha

 

check out the stairway that now goes nowhere! i try to imagine all the floors and wall hangings and secret passageways and hidden rooms... its hard tho!

 

im suprised i saw these little fellows! 4 floors up on the outside interior castle wall (does that make sense? inside the castle walls, in the court outside...)

 

do you see me in the pic below?? look to my left, theres an old fireplace! this we think was the provate quarters of whoever lived here, theres a 'bathroom' in the opposite corner and it would have been quite out of reach from the battles 4 floors up! imagine the great drapes and tapestrys!

 

just to show you some scale!

check me out being the PERFECT height for the doors! the boyf was about a foot about the doorframe! and had to duck and go thru sideways in some!

 

i love this name!! Ressona!!!

Center Parcs holiday!

these were in Penrith

me on and riding a bike! (theres a first for everything, and yes, it had 3 wheels, and yknow? i want one, i didnt fall off once!)

we were in a 'safe zone' for the reds!

the 'center' and lake from the pub

me after our photoshoot! (avec une starbucks iced tea...)

and the boyf with his latte

me, the boyf and Bob the Harris Hawk (not native to our country, he was a teen and very rebellious and he let me, and only me, out of the group stroke him, the owner thought it could be the fact that my hair and his body were the same colour, so he felt comfortable!)

quack

the view from where we were doing archery!

and some shots of the lake at sundown!